Couple Brief Thoughts on Celtic Spirituality

I cleverly managed to delete my post on the Daily Office in Holy Week… That’ll be coming once I get the time to reconstruct it.

I’ve been taking part in a Lenten program that bills itself as Celtic Spirituality. I was interested in seeing what was being said. It’s pretty much what I figured it would be, contemporary Liberal Protestant with a lot of feeling and a thin veneer that occasionally references some historical materials, some of which are “Celtic” (and some aren’t—unless the Victorines are Celtic and no one bothered to inform me…).

I took the chance recently to reacquaint myself with the Celtic Spirituality volume in the Classics of Western Spirituality series. It’s hard to screw up primary sources, however how you contextualize them and how you select them is open to a certain amount of fiddling. I found the introduction interesting as it I finally “got” the agenda here; they’re looking for a non-Roman Christianity, one that hasn’t been “spoiled” by the Church Fathers and classical culture. Here are a few significant quotes:

It has perhaps been the fate of Celts and the Celtic more than any other ethnic category to engage the imaginations of other cultures and to be taken up into agendas and narratives quite removed from the social realities of the insular world during the early Middle Ages. (pg. 8 )

(Hmm. You don’t say…)

Indeed, the early Welsh were keen to stress their historical links with the old Roman civilization and with the religion that it had introduced, and it is worth noting that the very term Welsh is an early English word that means “Romanized Celt.” (pg. 21)

This is news. In the Old English that I know wealh, wealas has two interconnected meanings: foreigner and slave. Did you mean Romanized or Romanticized?

Where things start getting hard and heavy is the final section of the introduction  entitled “Toward a Celtic Spirituality.”

The reconstruction of the spirituality of medieval Christians is not an easy task. In the first place, it requires an understanding of a cultural world that was very different from our own. But it is precisely the “otherness” of early medieval Celtic Christianity that makes it attractive to us, for it seems to contain perspectives that must have originated in the religious disposition of tribal peoples virtually untouched by the classical tradition.

. . .

It may be that an ancient form of Christianity survived much longer on the western margins of Europe, where there was, for instance, a relative absence of urban centers, than it did elsewhere.

. . .

Whatever the strengths of the classical Christian perspective that became the norm in most parts of western Christendom, many in the world today have become generally skeptical of a number of its key presuppositions. [summarizing here: primacy of males, reason over imagination, absence of nature, alienation from the body] A number of the Christian texts included in the present volume offer—albeit tentatively in some instances—the outline of alternative paradigms. (pgs. 23-24)

Ok—I see in here a Rousseauean “noble savage” conceit nurtured by latent nationalism and an appeal to the primitive church over-and-against “classical” (read “Roman [Catholic]”) developments. Interesting indeed…

I was also amused by this section that introduced the saints’ lives in the volume:

This latter point [that hagiography is about depicting sanctity to a culture] is of considerable importance, since there is a marked tendency among Celtic hagiographers to signal Christian sanctity by the use of motifs that appear to belong to the iconography of an earlier and pre-Christian age or, alternatively, to that of a surviving paganism. These are magical in kind and stress the Christian saint’s access to power. The Lives of Celtic saints are notoriously amoral in that the power of the saint can often be manifest in destructive ways that sit uneasily with the ethical values of the Christian gospel. (pg. 27)

So this is a uniquely Celtic trait? So you haven’t read either the Life of Martin or the Dialogues of Sulpicius Severus? Or the monastic Lives of Jerome? Or the Lives of the Desert Fathers? Because the same exact things happen there. Or, perhaps, would you rather have us believe that we’re getting in touch with a way more cool Pre-Christian and possible pagan element than to suggest that they were borrowing stock topoi that were an expected part of the genre that they were copying from the broader Church…

Of course, perhaps Jerome was Celtic and I just hadn’t picked up on that before now.

Ok—I am being a little harsh here, I admit it. There are some helpful and important things that are drawn out in the introduction but I feel that they only mumble that which I would shout from the rooftops:

To some extent what we will find in these texts is a type of Christianity that was characteristic of the patristic period, prior to the rise of Benedictine monasticism on the Continent and the centralizing, regulating, influence of the papacy, and which survived in the Celtic margins. (pg. 12)

. . .

The Irish monks who from the sixth century traveled across the continent of Europe were following in the footsteps of ancient Irish traders, and the great monastic foundations of Southern Gaul, such as Marmoutier and Lerins, were seedbeds of monasticism that undoubtedly left their mark on the early Irish Church. (pg. 17)

. . .

The spiritual inspiration for the early Welsh Church seems to have come in the main from the monks of the Middle East through their counterparts in Southern Gaul. The Lives of the early Welsh saints are full of references and allusions to the monasticism of the desert, and the Eastern monastic ascetic ideal evidently proved a powerful role model in Wales, as it did in other Celtic lands. (pg. 22).

There we go—that’s what I’m talking about.

This ht me hardest when reading through the Welsh poem “Praise to the Trinity” which contains this epithet, “The God of Paul and Anthony.” The Paul and Anthony are Paul of Thebes and Anthony the Great and right there any notion of pristine, primitive, non-classically influenced Christianity is blown out of the water by a clear off-hand reference to the writings of Jerome and Athanasius…

Here’s the bottom line for me. If all you know about patristic Christianity is the treatises of St Augustine and all you know about medieval Christianity is Thomas’s Summa, then yes, “Celtic spirituality” can look like quite the refreshing surprise. And, given what gets taught in seminaries these days, some (many?) clergy are in this position, let alone lay people.

My perspective, though, is entirely different. I see these documents in the context of the Monastic Pipeline West which flows from Jerome and John Cassian to Sulpicius Severus and Caesarius of Arles and through Gaul to the Insular world. These Celtic writings are not discontinuous from “established Christianity” but represent a development of a particular strand of it as the West sought to assimilate and inculturate the ideals of the monastic movement. For me, they’re part and parcel of early medieval monasticism. Yes, Celtic hymns and poems are quite beautiful and astounding—especially if you’ve never heard of Paulinus of Nola or Venantius Fortunatus and have no clue about the hymnwriters and poets working contemporaneously.

Is that to say that there’s nothing distinctive about the particularly “Celtic” instantiation of early medieval monasticism? No—but what it is is more difficult to isolate and define than what it’s made out to be.

The Kalendar in Holy Week

Overview

Holy Week is the week beginning with Palm/Passion Sunday and ending at the Eucharist of the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday. While it falls within Lent, it represents an intensification of Lent and includes the Triduum, the Three Great Days.

Triduum is not a term used by the ’79 BCP. Nevertheless, attention to Triduum is perhaps one of the major differences between the ’79 BCP and all other Books of Common Prayer. Specific liturgies for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday including an Easter Vigil particularly focus attention around this greatest festival of Christ’s self-giving, death, and resurrection.

Every day in Holy Week is an officially named holy day in the BCP. Holy Week begins with “The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday,” extends from “Monday in Holy Week” through “Wednesday in Holy Week” before arriving at “Maundy Thursday,” “Good Friday,” and “Holy Saturday.”

Holy Week may start as early as March 15th or end as late as April 24th—giving a 40 day span within which these seven days may be located.

Historical Treatment

Under the early 20th century Pian rules, the first three weekdays of Holy Week are privileged ferias. Doubles of the First or Second Class were transferred until after the Easter octave; lesser feasts were commemorated at Vespers and Lauds. No commemorations were allowed during the Triduum.

Under the rules immediately before Vatican II, all the days in Holy Week were ferias of the first class. Feasts of the first class would be transferred until after the Easter octave; any lesser feasts would be omitted for the year without commemoration.

Thus the temporal days within Lent fell into the following categories; rank/order of precedence is per Ritual Notes:

Rank Class Days
2 Feria, 1st Class The last three days in Holy Week (Triduum)
6 Sunday, 1st Class Palm Sunday
7 Feria, 1st Class The first three days in Holy Week

Within the “Rules to Order the Service” in the English 1662 BCP, rules 1 through 3 address, among other things, occurrence with the days of Holy Week. Rule 1 states that:

When some other greater Holy Day falls on…Palm Sunday or one of the fourteen days following…it shall be transferred as appropriate to the Tuesday after Easter 1…: except that if Easter Day falls on April 22nd, 24th or 25th, the festival of St. Philip and St. James shall be observed on the Tuesday of the week following Easter 1, and the festival of St. Mark shall be observed on the Thursday of that week.

Thus, Holy Days are transferred after the Octave of Easter and special rules are in force when said transference might interfere with other Holy Days.

Rule 2 prohibits a greater Holy Day from superseding Palm Sunday.

Rule 3 states, “A lesser Holy Day shall lapse if it falls…on Palm Sunday or any of the fourteen days following.”

The Table of Precedence in the American 1928 BCP follows the same principle, giving “All the days of Holy Week” precedence and transferring Holy Days to the next open day after the Octave of Easter.

Current Status

The ’79 BCP agrees with both the classical Anglican and modern Roman rules. While the days of Holy Week are not ranked in the BCP’s minimalist system, a note under Holy Days clarifies their place:

Feasts appointed on fixed days in the calendar are not observed on the days of Holy Week or of Easter Week. Major Feasts falling in these weeks are transferred to the week following the Second Sunday of Easter, in the order of their occurrence. (p. 17)

Otherwise, only Good Friday is identified alongside Ash Wednesday as the other “Fast” under Class 3 Holy Days.

General Norms for the Liturgical Year (GNLY) gives all the weekdays of Holy Week “precedence over all other celebrations” (GNLY 16.1). While the ’79 BCP does not define the term Triduum, the GNLY does:

Christ redeemed humankind and gave perfect glory to God principally through his paschal mystery: dying he destroyed our death and rising he restored our life. Therefore the Easter triduum of the passion and resurrection of the Lord is the culmination of the entire liturgical year.  Thus the solemnity of Easter has the same kind of preeminence in the liturgical year that Sunday has in the week.

The Easter triduum of the passion and resurrection of the Lord begins with the Evening Mass of the Lordʼs Supper, reaches its high point in the Easter Vigil, and closes with Evening Prayer on Easter Sunday, the Sunday of the Lordʼs resurrection.

On Good Friday and, if possible, also on Holy Saturday until the Easter Vigil, the Easter fast is observed everywhere.

The Easter Vigil, during the holy night when the Lord rose from the dead, ranks as the “mother of all holy vigils.” Keeping watch, the Church awaits Christʼs resurrection and celebrates it in the sacraments. Accordingly, the entire celebration of this vigil should take place at night, that is, it should either begin after nightfall or end before the dawn of Sunday. (GNLY 18-21)

Thus, the Roman reckoning of Triduum extends through Holy Week proper, encompassing the Sunday of the Resurrection as well as the preceding days.

The order of precedence established in the GNLY 59 is:

Rank Class Days
1 I Easter triduum of the Lordʼs passion and resurrection
2b I Palm Sunday
2c I Weekdays of Holy Week from Monday to Thursday inclusive

Liturgical Days within Holy Week

Holy Days

There are 2 Holy Days that may fall within Holy Week:

Date Class Feast DL Notes
Mar 19 Major Feast (3b) St Joseph A
Mar 25 Feast of our Lord (3a) The Annunciation g

In each case, the feast is transferred outside of both Holy Week and the Octave of Easter as stated in the BCP: “Major Feasts falling in [this week] are transferred to the week following the Second Sunday of Easter, in the order of their occurrence” (p. 17). Given that the fall in quick succession, both feasts are often transferred. If this is the case, the feast of St Joseph should be placed on the Tuesday and the Annunciation on the Thursday after Easter 2 in order that the Eves of both feasts may be duly celebrated without concurrence with one another.

Days of Optional Observance

Days of Optional Observance that fall within Holy Week should lapse for the year.

Random Service Music Note

Don’t ask me why I’m standing here on a rainy Saturday morning flipping through Galley’s The Ceremonies of the Eucharist, a book with which I normally have little to do.

In any case, I am, and I stumbled across this little gem in his discussion of the music for the Ordinary of the Mass:

It is sometimes asserted that Episcopal congregations are required to limit their repertory of music for the ordinary to settings included in the official hymnal. Such an assertion fails to take into account the fact that the only part of the hymnal that is set forth by authority is the words. The Episcopal Church does not legislate in the matter of musical settings. Clergy and musicians, working together, are free to make use of the settings in the hymnal (whether of hymns or of the texts of the ordinary) as are appropriate to particular congregations; and to select, compose, or commission such other settings as may be desired. (p. 49)

How interesting…

A Guiding Ideology of the Liturgical Renewal Movement

I was working up a post on the Kalendar in Holy Week when I encountered a concept that really deserves a post of its own. In thinking through the changes to Triduum (Maundy Thursday through Holy Saturday including the Vigil), I put some pieces together. This is one of those odd insights where the pieces have been in plain view the whole time and stating it out loud is an absolute no-brainer—it’s just never clicked to the degree that it has now…

One of the central—if not the central—ideology of the Liturgical Renewal Movement (LRM) was to shift the liturgical churches from a eucharistic piety to a sacramental piety. That is, instead of focusing on and primarily referencing the Eucharist as the central sacrament of the Church, they sought to focus on the two chief sacraments, placing Baptism alongside the Eucharist. I would suggest that many of the liturgical and theological differences between the Church of the ’28 BCP and the Church of the ’79 BCP can be directly attributed to this shift.

From the perspective of the Church of the ’79 BCP, the Church of the ’28 and its piety focus on the Eucharist in fundamental relation to the events of the Passion. Note, for a moment, the piety captured in this collect, variants of which had wide circulation in the Anglican world of the early 20th century:

O Lord, who in a wonderful Sacrament hast left us a memorial of thy passion, grant us so to venerate the sacred mysteries of thy body and blood that we may evermore perceive within ourselves the fruits of thy redemption through Jesus Christ…

Here the Eucharist is pre-eminently a memorial of the Passion and also a participation within Christ. The reverse is also true: the events of the Passion are understood eucharistically.

Again, from the perspective of the Church of the ’79 BCP, the anthropology of the Church of the ’28 is eucharistically derived with a focus on unworthiness, particularly an unworthiness to receive the Eucharist. The Prayer of Humble Access is typically People’s Exhibit A in prosecuting this line of thought:

We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy: Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his Body, and our souls washed through his most precious Blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.

Note in particular the theological function of the bit of this prayer that was edited out of the ’79 BCP’s Prayer of Humble Access: “that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his Body, and our souls washed through his most precious Blood.” I suggest that this change was made for three fundamental reasons. The first was to remove the separation of bodies and souls which the ’79 editors saw as too dualistic (see Hatchett), the second was to remove the suggestion that the body/bread effected one thing and the blood/wine effected another, but the third—and the pertinent one here—is that “washing” is connected to the Eucharist rather than Baptism.

The epicenter of this theological Change was expressed liturgically in the restructuring the Triduum. The centerpiece is the Easter Vigil as the great Baptismal Feast of the Church.This recapturing enabled the reorientation of Lent as a preparation for Baptism which takes the previous penitential character of the season and recasts it. We’re no longer just heading towards the Cross; we’re also heading towards the font.

Another noticeable change is the emphasis on the foot-washing on Maundy Thursday. While foot-washing has always been part of this day, I think that the LRM gave it a new emphasis and importance as a type of Baptism performed by Jesus on the apostles.This emphasis places Baptism as equal in importance to the Eucharist at the Last Supper, a uniquely momentous point in the Church’s consciousness.

The underlying point of these changes is the make the central festivals of the year, the liturgies of Triduum and Easter, to be centrally about both Eucharist and Baptism, then to portray the Easter Vigil as the paradigmatic act of Christian worship to which all Sunday Eucharists point. From there, the LRM and the ’79 BCP derive an anthropological shift. The sacramental center of this theological anthropology is not the Eucharist and our unworthiness to receive it, rather it is Baptism and our worthiness as members of Christ.  It is from this anthropology that a host of other changes have resulted.

(On a side note, I hypothesize that it would be very instructive to look at the exegesis of John 19:34 through the 20th century. This is the verse where the mingled blood and water flow from the side of Jesus. My guess is that at the beginning of the century, most liturgical exegetes would interpret this theologically as a reference to the Eucharist—see the number of depictions where this flow is caught by a chalice. As the LRM made headway, however, I think you’ll see a shift towards seeing it as a sign of Baptism which is how it was presented to me at seminary…)

In short, then, I think that one of the most profound theological differences between the Church of the ’79 BCP and the Church of the ’28 BCP can be traced to the impact of the LRM. Obviously there are other theological and cultural factors in play here too but I’d argue that this is how those factors were expressed liturgically. The reshaping of Triduum , the pre-eminence of the Easter Vigil, and the representation of all other Sundays as a reflection of the vigil serve to reinforce a sacramental anthropology that plays down a penitentially-rooted eucharistic anthropology in favor of a “higher” baptismal anthropology.

The Daily Office in Lent

The Fore-Office

The Angelus, should you use it, is said through Lent into Holy Week.

The ’79 BCP provides 5 opening sentences. They should be used sequentially, the first serving the partial week following Ash Wednesday and the Week of Lent 1,  changing to the second sentence on Lent 2 and so on.

The Confession of Sin should be a more regular feature during Lent; daily use is ideal.

The Invitatory and Psalter

The use of “Alleluia” after the opening versicle is dropped.

There is one Invitatory Antiphon appointed for Lent, “The Lord is full of compassion and mercy: O come let us adore him.” which should be used for the whole period except on the three Holy Days. The Feast of St Matthias uses the antiphon for Major Saint’s Days without the Alleluias; the Feast of St Joseph and the Annunciation both use the antiphon for Feasts of the Incarnation.

The Daily Office Lectionary appoints Psalm 95 as the Invitatory for Fridays in Lent. Alternatively, the full Psalm 95 may be used throughout Lent rather than the truncated version of the Rite II Venite.

When “Alleluia” appears in the psalter during Lent it is omitted.

The Lessons

Year Two preserves the ancient tradition (as recorded in the 7th century Ordo XIII) of reading through Genesis and Exodus during Lent. Year One’s readings move through the prophet Jeremiah perhaps due to the soul-searching and personal suffering so eloquently described by the prophet. After a flirtation with Hebrews during the Week of Lent 1, Romans is read in Year One through chapter 11. 1st Corinthians is read through chapter 14 in Year Two, omitting chapters 15-16 on resurrection, then moves briefly into 2nd Corinthians before Holy Week. A new Gospel begins in Lent, John in Year One and Mark in Year Two.

Of all the Office elements, the canticles are most impacted by Lent. The Te Deum is usually suppressed during Lent and the Benedictus Es used in its place, save the three Holy Days. The Suggested Canticle Table brings in the Kyrie Pantokrator following the first reading on Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays and the Gloria in excelsis is replaced by the Magna et mirabilia after the second reading. Alternatively, some uses, like that of the OJN, use the Kyrie Pantokrator as the invariable first canticle through the season, the three Holy Days excepted.

The Prayers

Anglican tradition from the English 1662 BCP through the American 1928 BCP appoints the Collect for Ash Wednesday to be read following the Collect of the Day from Lent 1 to Palm Sunday. While this option is not mentioned in the ’79 BCP, it seems a good practice in keeping with this book’s heightened emphasis on the seasons of the liturgical year.

The Great Litany should be used more frequently during Lent, Wednesdays and Fridays being most appropriate.

The first and simplest conclusion is best when the Great Litany is not used.

The Marian Anthem throughout Lent is the Ave Regina Caelorum which is used into Holy Week.

The Kalendar in Lent

Overview

Lent is a 40-day period spanning 46 days.  Sundays are excluded from the calculation and, in the Book of Common Prayer, are technically referred to as Sundays “in” Lent rather than Sundays “of” Lent.  Nevertheless, they share common liturgical traits and themes with the Lenten ferias.

Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. Despite being a Holy Day, Ash Wednesday is a ferial day and thus the day liturgically begins at midnight—there is no “First Vespers” of Ash Wednesday and it is technically incorrect to anticipate it on Tuesday night.

The ending of Lent is a matter of controversy due to how one construes Holy Week and Triduum. Ritual Notes (11th ed.) ends Lent just before the Mass of the Easter Vigil (p. 262); the BCP does not say; the Roman GNLY ends it at the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Maundy Thursday (GNLY 28).

Due to the variability of Easter, the dates of Lent vary from year to year. The earliest Lent can begin is February 4th; the latest that Lent can end is April 24th. Thus, there is a 79 day period within which Lent will fall. No matter when it begins and ends, the days between March 10th and March 21st will always fall within Lent.

There are always six Sundays within Lent. They are numbered consecutively until the last which is officially entitled “The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday.”

Historical Treatment

Lent is the season most affected by the changes of Vatican II. In the pre-conciliar period, Lent was, in essence, a graded season. the Pre-Lenten period proceeded it (starting at the 9th Sunday before Easter), liturgical Lent began at the First Sunday of Lent although the full penitential practices began a few days earlier on Ash Wednesday, and penitence was intensified at Passion Sunday which occurred on  the Fifth Sunday of Lent. Passiontide encompassed the last two weeks of Lent, the last week being Holy Week, concluding with the Triduum. (I will treat Holy Week and Triduum separately from Lent.)

In the immediately pre-conciliar Roman kalendar, the Sundays of Lent were of the first class, meaning that no observances or commemorations were permitted—the liturgical focus was entirely on Lent. The Sundays were (SBH):

  • Invocabit: First Sunday (or Quadragesima)/Lent 1
  • Reminiscere: Second Sunday/Lent 2
  • Oculi: Third Sunday/Lent 3
  • Laetare: Fourth Sunday/Lent 4
  • Judica: Passion Sunday/Lent 5
  • Palmarum: Sixth Sunday/Palm Sunday

The Fourth Sunday, Laetare (Rejoice), was the Rose Sunday, a day of penitential lessening before the on-set of Passiontide.

Leaving Holy Week aside, the ferial days of Lent were liturgically of the third class, meaning that they outranked any third class feasts; feasts would be commemorated rather than celebrated. First and second class feasts would be celebrated but the feria would receive a commemoration.

The prior Pian kalendar rules from the turn of the 20th century, still observed by those who use the Anglican Breviary, legislated that weekdays in Lent were Greater Non-Privileged Ferias meaning that they superseded Simple feasts. While the ferias gave way to feasts from Semidoubles on up, a commemoration of the feria was required.

Thus the temporal days within Lent fell into the following categories; rank/order of precedence is per Ritual Notes:

Rank Class Days
6 Sundays, 1st Class The Sundays of Lent
7 Feria, 1st Class Ash Wednesday
22 Feria, 3rd Class Weekdays in Lent

Current Status

Vatican II and the ’79 BCP put a very heavy emphasis on Lent’s early function as a preparation for Baptism. Theologically, the “grading” qualities of Lent were abolished. Liturgically, this meant the Pre-Lenten period disappeared, and Passion Sunday was collapsed into Palm Sunday.

The ’79 BCP does not differentiate the Sundays in Lent from other Sundays except to say that they may not be superseded by local feasts of dedication, patron, or title. Ash Wednesday is placed within Class 3 (Holy Days) and is one of two officially appointed fasts. The notes indicate that “Feasts appointed on fixed days in the Calendar do not take precedence of Ash Wednesday” (p. 17). The ferias of Lent are found in Class 4 (Days of Special Devotion). This is properly an ascetical category rather than a liturgical one; the instructions state: “The following days are observed by special acts of discipline and self-denial…Ash Wednesday and the other Weekdays of Lent…except for the feast of the Annunciation” (p. 17). The liturgical impact of these dates is not addressed.

The motu proprio on the kalendar following Vatican II, General Norms for the Liturgical Year (GNLY), make the Roman position a bit more clear.  As in the ’79 BCP, the Sundays of Lent have precedent over any other solemnity or feast (GNLY 5) which are equivalent to the BCP’s Classes 2 and 3. Ash Wednesday has precedence over any other celebration which could fall on this day (GNLY 16.1). All of the other weekdays of Lent have precedence over obligatory memorials (GNLY 16.3) which are equivalent to the BCP’s Class 5.

The order of precedence established in the GNLY 59 is:

Rank Class Days
2b I The Sundays of Lent
2c I Ash Wednesday
9c II Weekdays in Lent

Liturgical Days within Lent

Holy Days

There are 2 Holy Days that may fall within Lent and 1 that will always fall in Lent:

Date Class Feast DL Notes
Feb 24 Major Feast (3b) St Matthias the Apostle f Usually falls in Lent; may be in occurrence with Ash Wednesday
Mar 19 Major Feast (3b) St Joseph A Always falls in Lent
Mar 25 Feast of our Lord (3a) The Annunciation g Almost always falls in Lent

The Annunciation is the only feast excepted from the ascetical requirements of Class 4.

The Feast of St Matthias is the only one of the three that may be in occurrence with Ash Wednesday. When this happens, St Matthias should be transferred to the Friday.

In each case, the feast should be kept and, if commemorations are used, the feria should be commemorated. If the feast falls on a Sunday it should be transferred to Tuesday unless this would place it into Holy Week.

Days of Optional Observance

The BCP is not clear on what happens during Lent with Days of Optional Observance (Class 5). As noted above, all weekdays of Lent appear in Class 4, however, this class seems to be more ascetical than liturgical. Lesser Feasts and Fasts, however, includes collects for each day of Lent and states that:

“In keeping with ancient tradition, the observance of Lenten weekdays ordinarily takes precedence over Lesser Feasts occurring during this season. It is appropriate, however, to name the saint whose day it is in the Prayers of the People, and, if desired, to use the Collect of the saint to conclude the Prayers.”

Roman practice concurs based on the precedence of Lenten weekdays to memorials.

Ritual Notes, 11th Ed. states that third class feasts receive no commemorations on Sundays in Lent; on weekdays they receive commemoration only at Matins and low Mass. (p. 283)

There are a few significant Days of Optional Observance that should be mentioned:

Date Feast DL Notes
Varies Ember Days n/a The Wed, Fri, & Sat after Lent 1
Mar 1 David of Menevia d Patron of Wales
Mar 2 Chad of Lichfield e
Mar 12 Gregory the Great A sent missionaries to England
Mar 17 Patrick f Patron of Ireland

The Spring Ember days always fall in Lent. Under the old rules they were ferias of the second class taking precedence over the weekdays of Lent; according to the ’79 BCP they are Class 5 but are not recognized in the weekdays of Lent section within Lesser Feasts and Fasts.

The other saints listed my either be patrons of dioceses or regions or may be saints of title. If so, patronal festivals or feasts of title may not displace the Mass of the Day on a Sunday. They may, however, be observed on a Saturday or any other open day as a Local Feast of the first class/Class 3. Alternatively, they may be transferred outside of Lent.

Potential Issues

  • When does liturgical Lent start? At Morning Prayer of Ash Wednesday or at the First Vespers of Lent 1? I would suggest that since Ash Wednesday and the other initial days of Lent no longer fall under Pre-Lenten rules, Lent should begin liturgically on Ash Wednesday.
  • Should Days of Optional Observance be kept during Lent? I would say that the Ember Days have precedence, but that the ferias should be commemorated. In other cases, if they are not patrons or titular saints, the day is of the feria and the saint is commemorated. In the case patrons, the feast is celebrated and the feria commemorated (Gregory the Great is one of the patrons of the St Bede’s Breviary). If commemorations are not utilized, the saint is omitted.
  • How long is Passiontide? According to both Episcopal and Roman rubrics and practice, Passiontide and Holy Week are identical.

Holy Women, Holy Men at the Cafe

I’ve got a new piece up at the Cafe that looks at the guiding principles of the new sanctoral supplement, Holy Women, Holy Men, in light of the old rules as passed in 1994 and subsequently included into Lesser Feasts & Fasts.

I owe a big thank you to my readers here as conversation partners and especially to some recent correspondence with a reader who brought the ’94 rules to my attention.

Some of the links didn’t get into the body of the piece; I’ll talk to Jim et al. about getting them in, but in the meantime I’ll reproduce them here as well:

The 1994 General Convention Resolution (A074a) can be found in full here.

Here are the principles of revision from Holy Women, Holy Men which begin on pg 131 of the PDF from the Blue Book

Prayerbook Appreciation: Core Principles

Building on my previous post and the 3 axioms stated there, I’d like to talk out loud about how to maintain a consistent and coherent method of using the BCP.

I’ll confess, not everybody needs to do this… For some this may well be a very simple exercise—do what the book says. For me, as for many Anglo-Catholics, it’s not so easy. We know the richness and depth possible in the Western liturgy. At the same time, the BCP is supposed to be a reformed and streamlined version of the Western liturgy, a revolt against the flowering of excesses that required great and arduous study to perform a theoretically simple liturgy. We don’t really want to go back there—but neither do we want to miss out on what a properly reformed, patristic, catholic, Scriptural  liturgy could be. So, that’s the heart of the problem: can/how do we accomplish that within the bounds of the BCP and in coherence with its intentions?

The first principle must be:

1. Do what the book says when the book says you have to. No omissions, no substitutions.

This is pretty straight-forward. There are a number of items that are simply not optional. Morning Prayer proper starts with some variant of “Lord, open our lips.” Period. Unqualified items printed to be said and direct rubrics should be followed.

You can’t put in your own Creed or Eucharistic Prayer.

You can’t substitute the Confiteor for the Confession of Sin. (dang…)

2. Order matters, and the current shape of the rites should be respected. This especially goes for interpolations.

Furthermore, there’s an order concerning what things must follow what other things. That’s just the way it is—respect it. I’m guilty of offending this one…

As it currently stands the St Bede’s Breviary (hence SBB) interpolates the hymn in its pre-Vatican II place before the antiphon on the Gospel Canticle. However, this offends the shape of the ’79 Daily Office in three ways. First, it disregards that there is a place appointed for the hymn—after the Collects. Second, it interrupts the pattern of reading/canticle/reading/canticle by turning it into reading/canticle/reading/hymn/versicle/canticle. Third, it messes up the parallel structure with Evening Prayer since in the evening it’s reading/hymn/versicle/canticle/reading/canticle.

I think I’ve persuaded myself to put the hymn and accompanying versicle where the book says they ought to be. Which is OK. Having the hymn before the Gospel canticle made a lot of sense in the pre-Vatican II Offices—but it doesn’t function the same way in our Office and even putting it there now doesn’t make it serve that function.

3. The BCP contains intentions about its use;  some of these are explicit, some are apparent, some are only evident through study. Explicit intentions not directed by the rubrics should receive primary consideration. Apparent and the more concealed should be carefully weighed among the other options.

The point here is that not everything in the BCP is presented as law. Some are options or suggested recommendations. A case in point concerns the canticle tables on pp. 144-5. These are explicitly labeled as “Suggestions” but these suggestions reveal some clear intentions about the use of the BCP. For instance, I find these three principles at work:

  • Canticles generally move from OT to NT to Church Compositions. We’ve discussed this plenty on other posts.
  • More Scripture is the general rule… Again, we’ve discussed this before (along with the pros and cons thereof).
  • …But, the more traditional options are engaged on Sundays and Feasts. This should be noted. The tradition appealed to is that of the ’28 and earlier BCPs and thus indirectly to Sarum/pre-conciliar practice. The Benedictus and Te Deum are appointed but reversed from their traditional order more in accord with temporal movement noted in the first point.

One of the consistent push-backs from Anglo-Catholic parishes is a half-way adoption of the morning table. That is, the first option is taken, the second is rejected and the Benedictus takes its place as the invariable second canticle in recognition of its foundational place in the pre-conciliar Office of Lauds and as affirmed in its place in the Liturgy of the Hours.

This, then, is one way that the intentions of the BCP have been honored, but where the Historic Western Liturgy has won out. We do have freedom in this matter, and the chosen policy described here is an accommodation of both the suggestion and long-standing practice.

But that brings me to the second canticle table. I’ve never liked this one, but I may be changing my mind. What’s changing my mind has nothing to do with the shape of Evening Prayer in the ’79 BCP but the recognition that this book (at last) includes Compline. As we recall, the classical form of Anglican Evening Prayer/Evensong was formed by the aggregation of the secular Sarum Vespers and Compline. The Magnificat was the invariable canticle for Vespers while the Nunc Dimittis was the invariable canticle for secular Compline (not monastic, I’ll note, which does not employ a canticle).

The change in the ’79 Book is that it is the first American BCP to contain Compline. (The English Deposited 1928 had it as well but no authorized English BCP has contained it either.)

Whither the Nunc Dimittis? If the rule of prayer laid down by the ’79 BCP is to pray all four Offices: Morning, Noon, Evening, and Compline, then it seems fitting that, if four readings are used requiring two canticles at Evening Prayer, it makes sense to utilize the very same adaptation as above: use the first canticle from the table and use the Magnificat as the invariable second canticle, reserving the Nunc Dimittis for its more appropriate place at Compline. (But what to do on feasts and Sundays—put the Nunc first?)

To back up a little, I’d like to emphasize a few things here about these decision-making processes and what they mean for use of the principles. First, parishes make decisions about their practice. Where there is suggestion rather than legislation, the intentions of the BCP are given a primary place but are balanced by other factors that matter to the parish, in this case Anglican practice and the traditions of the Historic Western Liturgy.

4. Where the intention of the BCP is not clear, if the liturgy in question is Rite II, a liturgist’s first recourse should be to the liturgical documents proceeding from Vatican II, particularly the General Norms on the Liturgical Year (PDF), General Instruction of the Roman Missal, and the General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours. More general principles are found in Sacrosanctum Concilium, the declaration on the liturgy from Vatican II.

We’re obviously not Roman Catholic  and these documents are not binding on us. But as far as Rite II is concerned, it makes sense to recognize the relationship between Vatican II and the ’79 BCP. Again, I’m not necessarily saying we need to incorporate elements from these rites into our liturgy where the BCP does not have them, rather, these rites lead us to the intentions that may well be present in the BCP.

5. Actual elements to be added should privilege traditional Anglican, pre-conciliar Roman and specifically Sarum sources over Vatican II items, however.

This may seem a little counter-intuitive after the previous principle. The point here is that as much as the liturgical theology of the ’79 BCP participates in the same world-view as Vatican II, this council is not actually part of our Anglican heritage. Pre-Reformation Roman rites are part of our heritage, most specifically the Sarum Rite.

That having been said, this heritage principle must be balanced with what we’ll call the living tradition principle: Sarum’s great but it hasn’t been actually used in worshiping communities for centuries. Those who use it now (or embrace elements of English Use) are not in organic continuity  with Sarum practice. Sometimes continuity with present Roman tradition is a good thing. Clearly when both pre- and post-conciliar uses coincide, (or largely do), then it’s for the best.

Furthermore, when old Anglican and pre-Conciliar Roman materials are used they must be adapted for the current context. Specifically, anything dealing with the liturgical year must factor in the absence of the pre-Lenten season and the reality of the Revised Common Lectionary.

The obvious issues here would be the Minor Propers and the antiphons for the Gospel Canticles. The second is the easier of the two—since the whole point of the antiphon is that it picks up a line from the appointed Gospel, then a new sequence is required. As for the first, well, that goes back to the whole argument over the degree to which the Minor Propers are connected to the readings… I still haven’t made up my mind but am leaning towards using the Propers as determined by Vatican II.

6. Additions/interpolations to be added into the BCP liturgies should be added where directed, added consistently, added following the intentions of the rest of the liturgy, and should, ideally, come from a single source. If not a single source, then the sources to be used should be identified with a clear hierarchy of use.

For instance, page 935 allows the use of psalm and Gospel Canticle antiphons drawn from Scripture. How to go about implementing this?

The most obvious answer is to go back to Roman resources; the problem is that our Offices use the psalms differently. That is, we read through all of the psalms in Morning and Evening Prayer whether you use the new lectionary or the monthly method.  The Roman Little Hours tend to group several psalms under a single antiphon meaning that many of the psalms have their own antiphons but not all. So what’s an Anglican to do? Fill in the missing sections, groups psalms under antiphons (like A Monastic Breviary) or use a new sequence under a different guiding principle (like the English Office)? In the case of the SBB, I chose the latter.

One of Bede’s compositions was an abbreviated Psalter where he took a line or two from each psalm; in the SSB, I use those as the psalm antiphons when the antiphon is ordinary. Psalm antiphon propers come from the Tridentine breviary.

The Gospel Canticle antiphons required a similar decision, I use a modern Roman version for the Sunday antiphons that match with the RCL. Festal antiphons come from the Tridentine. Propers of the Season I compiled myself based on the Little Chapters of the pre-conciliar Office and appropriate lines from the most seasonally appropriate canticles.

7. Once a decision has been reached, use it for at least a season before changing it.

Liturgy must be lived with. When I say season, I don’t mean a set time. Jumping willy-nilly from option to option makes no sense for a community and isn’t that great for individuals either. So, explore the options, think them through, discuss them—especially if you’re going to be foisting them on other people in which case discuss it with them, then be prepared to live with them for a while before going on to the next great thing.

Ok—that’s all I can think of for now. What are your thoughts?